2011 ACRL STS Oberly Award to William R. Shurtleff

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CHICAGO – William R. Shurtleff, founder and director of the Soyinfo Center (Lafayette, Calif.), has been selected as the 2011 recipient of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Science and Technology Section (STS) Oberly Award for Bibliography in the Agricultural or Natural Sciences for his bibliography “History of Soybeans and Soyfoods in Africa (1857-2009): Extensively Annotated Bibliography and Sourcebook.”

The cash award and plaque will be presented at 8 a.m. on Monday, June 27, 2011, at the STS program during the ALA Annual Conference in New Orleans.

“This is a true piece of scholarship which will be useful to help governments, NGOs, nutritionists, soybean farmers, breeders, historians access a wide range of information of soybean that can help them in their quest to stem malnutrition and expand soybean production in Africa,” said the award co-chairs, Marianne Stowell Bracke of Purdue University and Lutishoor Salisbury at the University of Arkansas.

Shurtleff has worked in the field of soy research since 1976, when, together with Akiko Aoyagi, he founded the Soyinfo Center, an information and publishing company. He has written 55 published books, including “The Book of Tofu,” “The Book of Miso” and “The Book of Tempeh.”

The Oberly Award was established in 1923 in memory of Eunice Rockwood Oberly, librarian of the Bureau of Plant Industry, United States Department of Agriculture, from 1908 to 1921. She was the Bureau of Plant Industry's representative to the Congressional Joint Commission on Reclassification of Government Employees and was instrumental in gaining a fairer recognition of library activities. This biennial award is given in odd-numbered years for the best English-language bibliography in the field of agriculture or a related science.

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